Tamworth Aboriginal Medical Service adds eighth GP in quiet expansion of primary health service

Tamworth Aboriginal Medical Service (TAMS) employed their eighth GP a fortnight ago. The number has quadrupled in four years.

It's expanded to provide outreach services in the local government area outside the city of Tamworth, and there are even more dramatic plans afoot.

Mr Damion Brown, who has been acting CEO at the packed and busy Peel Street clinic for nine months, said the service was careful to expand at a deliberate pace, to nail any new service before winning funding to acquit another.

"The last probably three or four years we've really grown and it is a big need, there's a lot of people ringing us and asking us to be in different areas. I got asked again last week to do some work in Walcha. You know, we've been asked to go to Narrabri. We've been asked to go to Coonabarabran. We've also been asked to go to Barraba," he said.

The day the Leader visited, TAMS had a pair of ear, nose and throat specialists in for a clinic - and plenty of patients.

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Boasting about 40 staff, the biggest strength of the Peel Street clinic is, its diversity of services allows it to treat the whole person in a single sitting.

"We saw a classic example of that yesterday that someone saw one of our psychologists and then had a really acute appointment with a GP, like ten minutes after, and then went on to have some pathology - in the building. It's really powerful. It's a one stop shop."

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The service is currently funded to provide healthcare to predominantly Aboriginal people, and only in the Tamworth local government area.

But the five-year plan is to grow to cover gaps in Indigenous primary healthcare in Gunnedah, he said. The service has a GP outreach clinic in the town, three days a week and has started to offer drug and alcohol and social and emotional wellbeing services in the town as well.

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"[The long-term plan is] Probably having similar sort of unit in all of the towns across the LGA. And, you know, certainly in Gunnedah, it's probably a high priority. The gaps in services in Gunnedah are significant. So for me, we're looking to grow in Gunnedah," he said.

"[Aboriginal health care] it was almost non existent [in Gunnedah]. There's people waiting three to four weeks for a GP appointment in Gunnedah. There is no bulk billing, so people just didn't go to a doctor."

Founded in 1997, TAMS is a listed Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation.

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